“The lighthouse!” exclaimed Ned.
“Sure enough,” came from Sam. “It’s all right. I know where I am now. Better let me take the wheel.”
With the sureness of one who knows his way, even in the darkest night, the old sailor turned the craft into the proper channel. Forward it went, like a frightened hare scudding back to the shelter of the burrow.
“Rocky Point Light;—the South Light,” murmured Salt Water Sam. “I’m right at home now. We must have been behind the upper headland or we’d seen it before. It’s all right. We’re on our way back.”
So it proved. Through the darkness, illuminated only by the red and green side lamps, the Dartaway sped, steered by a sure hand. On and on she went toward the harbor.
The boys did not learn until afterward that they had been towed nearly twenty miles by the whale. Had the weather not remained calm they would have been in dire peril, but fortune favored them, even in the matter of escaping from the steamer. Had they been taken straight out to sea they would have had more trouble, but the big monster, in his blind rage, had taken a diagonal course up the coast.
“My, but I am sleepy,” remarked Jerry, stretching himself.
“So am I,” added Ned.
“You boys better take a nap,” Sam said. “I’ll call you about eight bells and take forty winks myself. We’ll get in about daylight.” And then he began to sing: